In a recent White House briefing, a journalist asked Press Secretary Jay Carney if the Obama administration is considering any legal action against journalist Glenn Greenwald. “I certainly know of none,” Carney said. “I don’t have anything on that for you.”

That a journalist even has to ask this question is a sign of the troubled relationship between the administration and the press.

A week before this briefing, the embattled head of the National Security Agency, Gen. Keith Alexander, sent a warning to journalists reporting on the NSA and Edward Snowden’s leaks. In an interview with the Defense Department's “Armed With Science” blog, Alexander said:

I think it’s wrong that newspaper reporters have all these documents, the 50,000 — whatever they have and are selling them and giving them out as if these — you know it just doesn’t make sense. We ought to come up with a way of stopping it. I don’t know how to do that. That’s more of the courts and the policymakers but, from my perspective, it’s wrong to allow this to go on.

Other than a brief article in Politico and a few other blog posts, there was little coverage of the general’s comments. But his remarks are part of the growing culture of intimidation and violence directed at journalists in the U.S. The recent report on press freedom from the Committee to Protect Journalists showed just how dire this situation has become.

Given all of this, it’s no surprise that journalists like Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras question whether they can safely return to the U.S. without facing prosecution for exercising their First Amendment rights.

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